Paris

May 19

Our first day in Paris was one that will certainly be remembered, but not for a good reason, unfortunately. Our hotel, the Ibis, had a promising lobby that filled us with the hope of a fresh Parisian breakfast every morning and a swanky bar and lounge for us to socialize in after a day of touring. However, what we were met with was a 3-hour delay due to only one of our 25 rooms being ready by the time we got there. What followed can only be described as a series of unfortunate events (a la Lemony Snickett): a small room filled with the luggage of 23 travel weary students, room keys that did not work even after 3 trips to the front desk, rude staff, dark, dingy rooms hardly big enough for one person to live comfortably, let alone two, air conditioning that didn’t work, windows that didn’t open, and Wifi that was virtually nonexistent. Not exactly the kind of accommodations you’d expect from a world-class city like Paris.

Despite these setbacks, we were determined to make the most of the day and took a trip to the Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation. This memorial was the Parisian’s way of officially recognizing the role they played in the Holocaust and their collaboration with the Nazis in their deportation of Jewish citizens. Upon entering, this memorial felt more like a crypt than a monument to those lost to the horrors of the Holocaust. It was underground and extremely claustrophobic in nature, with tight tunnels and low ceilings.

It contained very little information in terms of signs and plaques to explain why the memorial was designed the way it was – its beauty was in its simplicity. It was also haunting to be in a memorial that presents you with so little information other than the names of the death camps where millions of people would go to die. The names of the camps, scrawled on the wall in dark red paint, force you to confront the amount of gravity those names carry within them. This memorial felt like a place for penance rather than for remembrance, and left me feeling chilled and slightly uneasy, a much different sensation that other memorials have made me feel.

 

May 20

Our free day in Paris was one for the books. Instead of trying to cram in as many touristy activities as I could in one day, I decided to take it slow and enjoy my time there by doing whatever I wanted to do, sans agenda. Charlie, Natalie, Rachel and I began our day with a trip to the shopping district to explore the smaller boutiques and the larger high-end designer stores, such as Hermes, Chanel and Coach.

We stopped into Longchamp, where I treated myself to a nice purse as a lasting souvenir of my trip to Paris. We picked up some traditional macaroons from Laduree, the most picturesque little bakery I’ve ever seen.

We then dined at an outdoor café for lunch, enjoying our day in true Parisian fashion. Brunch was followed up by exploring the streets along the Seine, and visiting the little bookseller kiosks to find unique and unusual treasures to bring home as souvenirs. The day was concluded in the most perfect way – meeting up with more people from our trip to enjoy cheap bottles of champagne and wine beneath the Eiffel tower at night. It was then that I realized that Paris wasn’t as bad as I originally thought it was, and it struck me that I had truly enjoyed every part of my day.

I was sitting under one of the most famous buildings in the world, surrounded by friends, sharing stories and laughing and just enjoying living in the moment. If the Parisian lifestyle has taught me anything, it is that sometimes, slowing down and living in the moment is necessary to appreciate the simple joy of just being alive to witness something as magical as the Eiffel Tower at night.

 

May 21

The 21^st was a busy day for us in terms of learning. We began the day with a trip to the Musee de L’Armee, or the French Army Museum. The exhibit began with French military artifacts that dated back long before the WWII era, and while these artifacts were compelling, this era of history does not interest me as much, so I skipped ahead to the WWI/WWII exhibits. The French did a good job of telling the story of French involvement in WWII, but the thing that struck me was their massive emphasis on the French Resistance movement during the Nazi occupation in WWII.

We learned about the French Resistance movement and talked about it extensively in class, but ultimately agreed that, while it was good for morale, it was never organized and unified enough to make a significant impact on the outcome of the war. This museum made it seem like the Resistance played a much bigger, more important role in WWII than it actually did. My reasoning behind this is, considering France fell to the Nazis in only 6 weeks, they needed something to rally behind and to take pride in, and the Resistance movement is the only thing that really resonates with the people during this time. While the Resistance did carry out a large number of active and passive forms of resistance acts, it did not make nearly as big of an impact on the war as the museum made it seem like.

Furthermore, another form of historical embellishment was experienced when we entered the Charles de Gaulle wing of the museum. As you can imagine, this wing immortalized “The General” as a man who could do no wrong. The exhibit itself was shoddy, with a low-quality audio device that either 1) did not have the proper English translations 2) would not read the proper audio file to the corresponding exhibit or 3) would simply cut out in the middle of an audio presentation. Thankfully, most of the signs and plaques were translated into English, making the story slightly easier to follow. The exhibit glorified de Gaulle as the man who singlehandedly unified a broken nation and freed them from the clutch of Nazi terror. The already cheesy exhibit was followed up by a 20 minute movie about de Gaulle and his achievements in life. Such achievements include, but are not limited to: attempting (and failing) to escape from prison 5 times, “solving the human condition”, and liberating France after the invasion of Normandy, despite being excluded from all prior D-Day invasion plans. This movie was so blatantly Gaullist that it was hard to take it seriously and to take anything valuable away from it.

We concluded the day with a visit to the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, an English bookstore located in the heart of Paris, which became a prime target for Nazi censorship during the occupation. I never realized how much importance was placed on the censorship of books and literature during the Nazi occupation, but Patrick’s site report was certainly eye-opening and gave me a much better understanding of the historical significance behind this otherwise unassuming little book shop, tucked away in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

 

Honestly speaking, Paris was probably my least favorite location of the trip so far. It struck me as dirty and crowded and very unfriendly to foreigners. It was amazing to see the world-famous historical landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, and I appreciate the fact that I got the opportunity to see them in person, but I am also extremely grateful that we only had to spend two and a half days in Paris. Onward to Kraków!